Catherine Fleming: Finding Visibility in Invisible Struggles

There are few people that you meet briefly who leave a lingering impact on your life; there are even fewer people who leave you with a heightened sense of curiosity, purpose, and belonging. Catherine Fleming and I met ever so briefly at the Breaking Bread Cafe on a snowy Wednesday afternoon in Northern Minneapolis, where we exchanged anecdotes about our lives, speculated on our identities and where we fit in, and discussed pressing environmental injustices that complicate our livelihoods. Catherine’s way of speaking coupled with her knowledge and experience captivated me. Her story is long and winding with many twists and turns, and there’s no way to directly translate her experiences onto these pages, but I will try and start from the beginning.

Background

Catherine was born in Georgia and raised in New Jersey, and it is here in Minnesota that she discovered the importance of being a part of a community. In New Jersey, she found a sense of home by being around individuals who shared similar experiences and familiar identities, and being raised in this setting has strongly impacted the work she does and the perspectives she takes on life. Soon after graduating college, she found herself working within the corporate world, traveling from place to place chasing one job after another. Her complex career path allowed Catherine to live all over the United States as well as abroad in Europe, accumulating a wider knowledge of the ways that individuals in different environments understand their surroundings and relationships. As we talked, it became clear to me that she was not only a highly observant person, but also someone who, despite living in many places temporarily, has been able to create deep, meaningful relationships no matter where she went. Catherine seems to have connections in all of the different places she has lived, demonstrating that wherever she goes she is influenced by her sense of home and community. “No one’s path in life is laid out for them. You just follow what you believe is right in your heart and everything else falls into place.” Catherine is truly a woman of passion and belonging.

Catherine is involved in several organizations in the Twin Cities, including the Environmental Justice Coordination Council (EJCC), Project Sweetie Pie, and the Eco-Harbor Coalition, to name a few. She is actively trying to be the voice for the underrepresented and marginalized communities to which she belongs, and finds that some issues hit closer to home than others. In the next few sections I highlight some of the main environmental justice issues that Catherine Fleming is currently involved in.

Housing for the Homeless

Catherine showed up to the Breaking Bread Cafe roughly 20 minutes after we had originally agreed to meet, composed and friendly. She apologized for her tardiness and proceeded to explain to me that she was just at the State Capitol speaking to a senator about the homeless population living along the highway. “Now, how can the city have enough money to build a concert venue but not enough to provide homes for the homeless?”This is one of the more recent issues she has gotten involved with, as she is appalled by the City of Minneapolis’ response to their homeless population (or lack thereof). Rather than working toward a solution for homeless, the city is attempting to relocate these individuals to a less public area. It appears the city is trying to hide their problem rather than solve it, and Catherine refuses to accept this negligence and sleight of hand. She stated “Now, how can the city have enough money to build a concert venue but not enough to provide homes for the homeless?” Catherine is not afraid to call out the way the city pereptuates municipal and institutional contradictions that the city imposes on its people through their developmental priorities. These contradictions are most apparent in the recent Upper Harbor Terminal project.

The Upper Harbor Terminal

The Upper Harbor Terminal (UHT) is a development project that plans to transform a 48-acre parcel of land in Northern Minneapolis. This area has a long history of industrial pollution and thus substandard living conditions. The focus of the UHT is to transform this area into a large concert venue and boardwalk, ultimately changing this industrialized sector into one of recreation and accessibility. What seems to be a thoughtful plan to transform a brownfield into a recreational space, actually perpetuates both environmental and social injustices. Catherine was quick to deconstruct the UHT and explain a number of these injustices, including the lack of community involvement and the potential for environmental harms. She also expressed a few practical concerns such as parking/transit regulations and the potential for issues with alcohol usage.

A lack of authentic community engagement and involvement efforts made by the City of Minneapolis and its developers are at the forefront of the UHT controversy, says Catherine. When marginalized areas are refurbished, costs of living are usually driven upward, and residents may be forced to leave their neighborhoods due to increased expenses.Though the city sent out a survey, a mere 200 out of the 48,000 people who live in the surrounding areas of the UHT answered it, and less than 50 people attended the community meetings hosted by the developers. These small numbers represent a small fraction of the population that will be impacted by the UHT, and given the underwhelming participation of community members, the developers cannot justify the claim that they included community input into their plans. Being a resident of Northern Minnesota, Catherine wants to ensure that her community’s voices are heard. She points out that when marginalized areas are refurbished, costs of living are usually driven upward, and residents may be forced to leave their neighborhoods due to increased expenses. She wants to change this narrative, and see that in the case of the Upper Harbor Terminal the city is held accountable to upholding justice.

Catherine quoted from a report done by the National Park Service as well as an environmental report done by the City of Minneapolis, both of which indicate high soil erosion rates, increased noise pollution, and water quality concerns that may be caused by the current proposal. She explained that the sheer size and capacity of the buildings will exacerbate soil erosion and degrade the quality of the land near the river even further, rather than heal it as the plan proposes. The noise pollution will upset the current wildlife, driving away the birds and creating ecological edge effects which will make it extremely difficult to restore the land back to its native ecologies. Being on the riverfront, water quality issues are a major concern due to the amount of waste the concert venue will produce, which has not yet been addressed. All of these environmental issues have been addressed and documented by two major organizations, one of them being the city itself, and yet the developers still fail to explicitly respond to the concerns. This makes their “dedication to sustainability” appear more like an embellishment than a practical application. The Upper Harbor Terminal is a chance for the city to right their past wrongs and to create a space that gives residents access to the river’s beauty and nature, actually benefiting them for once, rather than harming them.

There has also been no consideration of transit by the developers, raising questions regarding where people will park their vehicles and what will become of the current public transit. Catherine said that without proper transportation planning, parking during an event at the concert venue will spill into the surrounding community and current transit lines will be overwhelmed, making it more difficult for community members to navigate their own neighborhood. In addition, alcohol will be sold at the concert venue, which will also have negative impacts on the community. When events at the venue end, the intoxicated visitors will relocate into the streets, loitering and littering within a neighborhood that is not their own. All of these issues were not given any consideration by the developers, and Catherine is determined to bring these issues to light before development begins.

Global Warming

The increasingly pressing issue of global warming is the final topic Catherine and I discussed at the Breaking Bread Cafe. As Catherine traveled from place to place, she took notice of how people always talked about the abnormal weather patterns that their areas were experiencing. These conversations were not unique to a particular region—it seemed as though no matter where people went, they were noticing changes in the atmospheric conditions. This ubiquity of the topic of climate change tells Catherine that global change is happening.

She then proceeded to tell me a short anecdote about her hometown in Georgia. There is a groundhog that comes up every year in order to predict whether winter will last for a few more weeks or if spring will arrive a few weeks early. If the shadow of the groundhog is present, it gets scared away, meaning a few more weeks of winter. If there is no shadow, the groundhog does not get scared away, which means that spring will arrive a few weeks early. Catherine told me that, in her lifetime, this groundhog has never been wrong about its prediction—until last year. I thought that this anecdote about the groundhog showed Catherine’s ability to storytell: she had me absolutely captivated as she described global warming through the groundhog. It demonstrated her ability to explain complex issues in a simplistic manner; it showed how she attempts to rationalize global warming in ways that are not necessarily scientific, but communicable to others.

Personal Identities

Our identities, both the ones perceived and constructed by society, as well as the ones we create and shape for ourselves, influence our morals, actions and desires. Being a black woman working in a white-male dominated industry has shaped the way Catherine goes about her life and has influenced her need for involvement in issues that are directly related to her identities. Catherine has experienced difficulties in being taken seriously by her male counterparts and has also faced numerous institutional restrictions that have kept her from climbing the corporate ladder. To have her identity be a factor in her ability to succeed in her career path has ignited this flame within her that fuels her desire to be the voice of communities that are facing the same inequalities. Being a minority female myself, I connected with and understood many of the concerns Catherine expressed and shared with her my personal experiences as well. I understood her drive and her need to help others that confront the same oppressions.

These restrictions are the main motivations Catherine attributes to her need to be involved in the environmental community—because someone needs to be the voice for these historically marginalized and oppressed communities. Catherine believes that there is not enough representation, as she is often the only woman of color who is present during UHT meetings or is willing to go to the Capitol and demand equitable rights for the homeless. Her identities clearly influence the work she takes part in, and I could not help but feel inspired by her bravery and confidence.

Conclusion

Oftentimes, being involved in environmental organizations and movements can be disheartening. It may feel that we, as individuals who are simply concerned about the welfare of the environment and others, are powerless in the face of legislative forces. Our opinions and voices may not always feel as though they are being heard, nor may it feel like our actions and activism are making any real impact on the issue at hand. “We are warriors. We are warriors because we keep trying, we are warriors because we refuse to let our losses discourage us.”However, it’s important that we continue trying despite the odds being stacked against us, and Catherine refuses to let the disproportionate power distribution influence our agenda—“We are warriors. We are warriors because we keep trying, we are warriors because we refuse to let our losses discourage us.” This is Catherine’s mantra, and it may soon be mine.